Kukla's Korner Hockey

Q With a team-record payroll of more than $57 million (a few million from the salary-cap ceiling), you could not have been happy with a 13th-place finish. What are your expectations this year?

A: I’m not happy. It’s been a very long offseason. We are committed to winning, and winning means playoffs—and a run in the playoffs. Last year was a bad year. We got off to a surprisingly bad start. We had a decent run in the middle. And then we had a bad ending. We need to have a little bit of luck this year in terms of injuries. If we have a normal injury kind of year, I would expect our team to be a strong playoff team, one that will have a run in the playoffs—whatever that means, however you define that. I know how I define it. All of us were not happy with how we ended last year and where we were in the standings last year. That’s just not acceptable. I’m not proud at all that we didn’t make the playoffs the last two years.